Staining & Sealing

Ninety percent of a stain job is what happens before the stain. Wood that has been hit with a pressure washer and nothing else still carries mill glaze, old finish, and tannin, and a stain applied over that sits on the surface and peels off in sheets the following spring. We strip it, clean it, neutralize with a brightener to bring the pH back down, and then we let it dry.

Moisture content matters more than the weather forecast. Wood has to be under roughly 15 percent before it will take a penetrating stain, which after a wash means two to three dry days, longer in the fall. We meter it. A deck stained while it is still holding water looks fine for a month and then blotches, because the stain never got into the fiber in the first place.

New pressure-treated lumber should wait. It comes off the truck saturated with treatment chemicals and needs a season — three to six months — before it will absorb anything. Sealing a deck the week it was built traps that moisture inside the board. If you want protection right away, a clear water-repellent is the honest answer; a solid color stain is not.

Semi-transparent penetrating stains soak in and wear by fading, so the next round is a wash and a re-coat. Solid stains and deck paints form a film, look excellent for two years, and then peel — and once a horizontal surface has peeled you are back to stripping it to bare wood. We will recommend semi-transparent on a walking surface nearly every time and save the solid colors for vertical surfaces like fences and railings.

Plan on a light re-coat every two to three years on a deck and four to five on a fence. That is not a product failure. Horizontal wood in full sun and freeze-thaw is the hardest surface there is to keep a finish on.